This blog was created to document the experiences of my year teaching English in Korea.

Friday, September 24, 2010

China-Day 4

Day 4, we are determined to have a better second half to our trip. Looks like the weather will be accomodating so we head out.

First we catch the train to the electronics market in Beijing. Shea, the tall boy, wants to find a camera so we roll out. So crowded ALL the time...

We get to a really shabby market first and they have just a handful of cameras. But we did happen to find a really nice one. But the seller was kind of not nice so we didn't buy and we left. We made it to a much nicer area with a huge selection. We can tell that we will be paying a little more but the service is much better. We walk in a look at a couple cameras. We ask the price and because I make a gesture like "I can't believe that you are asking so much for this" a young (no older that 18ish) boy takes us through some back hallways and up an elevator. When we get to our destination we are greeted by a bunch of camera salespeople. They ask ridiculous high price and I say "wow, that's expensive." They hand me a piece of paper and ask what I want to pay. I put down a number less than half of their original asking price and wait to be laughed at and escorted from the building. They look at my price and smirk so we all get up and walk out. As we are walking out, salesmen in the hallway were asking us to buy their cameras and the people we just dealt with take our price. Shea got a new camera at that moment. It was good.

All that bargaining made us hungry so we ate for lunch. This is something we don't know...

This is a tofu dish...

This is a rice pastery, we think...

After the morning shopping we head out to some famous places around the Beijing area. Like this government building... And this museum...

And this People's Monument in Tienamen Square.

A nice view

One of the gates. Story here. As we are looking at this and taking pictures a man comes up to us and tells us this story about how today is a special day because tomorrow the Eqypt president or whatever is coming so today foreigners can go up in the tower and get a good look. Not that we aren't skeptical but we go anyway. We have nothing else to do...

A lamp in that tower...it was made in China. Look at the bottom of it.

This is the entrance to the Forbidden City.

We entered and saw this and a lot of this. The whole "city" is this and there is a lot of it. Most boring city EVER!

This is the Imperial Garden.

Mom, for you.

As we were heading back to our hotel we saw this {lake?} anyway it was beautiful to me so I took a picture of it...Then later that night we went to a Kung Fu show. Not that it was horrible, I just felt that my Taekwondo could come in handy too...They did do some crazy stuff I wouldn't and the kids in the show were beyond amazing. Heading through the night market in Beijing.